There's a Car on the Open Road to Happy World Land
"Yooouuuuu're out! Cucko-cuckoo-cuckoo!" Gogo Dodo declared as he popped out of the classroom clock dressed as an umpire.
The doors of Acme Looniversity flew open as all the kids ran out cheering, summer vacation had officially begun.
"Ah, summer at last! 3 glorious months of nonconstructive downtime!" Plucky Duck declared as he and Hamton Pig walked home. "If you ask real nice, Hammy, I'll consider letting you hang out with me."
"But Plucky-"
"Now what'll we do first? The beach? Camping? Or shall we simply veg the whole 12 weeks away in front of the boob tube?"
"But Plucky," Hamton told him, "My folks are taking me to Happy World Land."
"Happy World Land?" Plucky repeated. "Not the happiest place in the hemisphere, go on all the rides til you barf, fun for kids of all ages Happy World Land!"
"Uh, yeah."
"Gasp and da-rool!" Plucky exclaimed, "That's every duckling's dream!"
"Oh Hamton!" Wade Pig called from the driveway, "Hurry up, son, we're all raring to go!"
It looked like it. He'd packed the car and it looked like they were taking everything including the kitchen sink, least of all there was a bathtub and shower tied to the roof of the car, along with a canoe, a motorboat, a cooler, fishing poles, a tent, and other assorted items.
Max Goof had had a roller coaster of a last day of school. He'd overslept, which was bad, and he'd choked when trying to talk to Roxanne, that was bad, he'd had five glorious minutes in the school auditorium putting on a show dressed as Powerline, had all the kids in an uproar, screaming, cheering, finally got Roxanne's attention, and then that went out the window when the principal caught him, that had been bad. After a trip to the principal's office, however, everybody had been impressed with what he'd done, and Roxanne had talked to him, had asked him to a party, that was good, that was very good, life was perfect now. He'd left school, skateboarded through town and got home just in time to see his dad, Goofy, packing up the car.
"Going somewhere, Pop?"
"Sure are, pal-a-roonie!" Goofy answered as he hauled a pile of odds and ends towards the car, dressed in hip waders and a fishing hat.
"Cool, well have a good time, Dad, if you're gonna be gone more than a month, drop me a line."
"But Max, this isn't just my vacation," Goofy said as he loaded his stuff into the back of the car, "it's a vacation with me and my best buddy."
"Oh, Donald Duck?" Max asked.
"No, silly," Goofy said as he climbed up on the car to tighten a huge bundle he'd tied on the roof. "With you!"
The world as Max knew it fell away and he fainted.
When he came to his dad was standing over him.
"Are you okay, Maxie?"
"What'd you say?"
"That's right!" Goofy pulled Max to his feet and hugged him, "a vacation, son! We'll spend some real quality time together!"
"I think I'm gonna be sick," Max muttered.
"Hooray!" Yakko, Wakko and Dot Warner cheered as they danced around in a circle whooping and hollering, "School's out, school's out! Teacher let the monkey out!"
"Almost makes me wish we actually went to class," Yakko addressed the 4th wall, "Ahhhhhhh, almost." Then his calm demeanor dropped and he was jumping around with his sibs again, "Summer vacation! We're gonna sleep all day and play all night!"
"How's that any different from what we usually do?" Wakko scratched his head.
"It's not, it's just the principle of the matter," Yakko said.
"We don't have a principal, we don't go to school," Dot pointed out.
"Not that kind of principle, Dot," Yakko replied.
The next morning the Warners were sleeping in their bunks, not a care in the world or a thought in their heads, when suddenly the door to their water tower opened up and Dr. Otto von Scratchansniff entered.
"Vake up, it's late! It's 20 minutes after 8!"
"That sounds like a song cue," Yakko said as the three of them opened their eyes and sat up.
"Everyone get up, it's time to go, up and at-em, come on, shake a leg, on the floor and out ze door, let's be on our vay."
"I have a strange feeling we've done this before," Dot said as she climbed down the ladder from her bunk.
"That's called deja vu," Yakko said.
"What is?" Wakko asked.
"When you get the sensation you're doing something you've already done before," Yakko answered.
"What is?" Wakko asked.
"When you get the sensation you're doing something you've already done before," Yakko answered.
"What is?" Wakko asked.
"That's called deja vu," Yakko said.
"Submitted for your approval," Dot cynically addressed the 4th wall. "Alright, knock it off!" she slapped both brothers on the shoulders. "What's going on with Scratchy?"
"Ehhhh, dunno, might be time for our rabies shots," Yakko said skeptically.
"Alright zat's enough!" Dr. Scratchansniff told them, "everybody get your shtuff because we're going out de door!"
The three siblings looked at one another and exchanged puzzled glances and shrugged shoulders.
"Should we go peacefully?" Dot asked.
There was only a slight pause before a unanimous, "NEVER!" and they ran out the door and climbed down the water tower.
Dr. Scratchandsniff chased them around the parking lot as the three Warners circled around his blue mini-van and he grunted in a singsong tone, "Every time we get into ze car it's so much vork, it takes us 20 minutes vhile you're driving me berserk, wit' jur playing and your jumping and your running all about, vhen I get you inside, you always lock me out!"
Which is exactly what they did, then they pressed their faces against the glass grinning like a bunch of suction-cupped Garfields.
"Boy does he know us or what?" Yakko asked.
"Can I drive?" Wakko asked.
"Better not, Scratchy's got the keys and if we get pulled over he's the one that'll get a ticket," Yakko conceded as he unlocked the door and slid it open.
Dr. Scratchansniff was not amused as he got in the driver's seat and buckled up and told the Warners, "Everyone sit down and put your seat belts on."
For the moment they obeyed. They waited several minutes until they got on the freeway leaving Burbank, before they started up again.
"I'm mad, I'm mad," Dot declared as she sat in the middle seat while her brothers gazed out the windows. She reached over and poked Yakko sharply in the back and accused him, "You poked me with your elbow in my side," and pointed to her opposite side nearest Wakko.
"No I didn't," Yakko replied with a sly smirk.
"You did!"
"Uh uh."
"You did!" Dot insisted, "And I'm just a little kid, you're lying, don't deny it!"
"I'm gonna hit you!" Yakko got in her face.
"Yeah, just try it!" Dot replied.
"Vill both of you be quiet because we're driving in the car!" Scratchansniff turned to glance at them.
Dot yowled and fell back in her seat, "He hit me!"
"Ow! She bit me!" Yakko replied.
"He said he's gonna get me!" Dot accused.
Yakko scrunched up his face, "No I didn't!"
"Yes you did!"
"Both of you be quiet or you're gonna get a swat!" Scratchansniff warned them, glaring back at them and not watching the road as he started bobbing and weaving between lanes much to the distress of the other drivers on the road.
"Are we anywhere remotely near Happy World Land yet?" Plucky asked in an exhausted and almost hopeless tone.
This had been the worst road trip of his life. He'd been able to sucker Hamton and his family into taking him with them to Happy World Land, and it had all been downhill from there. He had to sit in the back with Hamton and Uncle Stinky, appropriately named as he'd found out unpleasantly. He'd had to endure mind numbing heat with no air conditioning, sat through half of the family's rendition of "100 Bottles of Non-Alcoholic Beverage on the Wall", was starving because they'd packed their own food they took to the drive-in restaurant, and found out the hard way he couldn't even enjoy his Immature Radioactive Samurai Slug comic books because reading in the car made Hamton carsick. He couldn't take one more bit of bad news.
"No," Wade answered, "but if you're bored we could play a game like-"
Hamton popped up on the seatback, "Spot the car? Spot the car?"
Wade chuckled, "Spot the car."
"WHOOPIE!" Hamton threw his hands above his head and sat back in his seat.
Why not? Plucky would try anything to relieve this mind-numbing boredom.
"Oh you mean like spot the red cars, or the cars with out-of-state plates?"
"No," Hamton shook his head. "Any car!"
Something about that didn't sound quite right to Plucky.
"Here they come!" Wade announced as a line of cars came up the opposite lane of the highway.
All five pigs jumped and bounced in their seats as they proclaimed in a singsong tone, "There's a car! There's a car! There's a car, there's a car!" and they all busted into amused laughter.
Not only did Plucky have no view of the cars, he had no view of anything because every time the pigs bounced in their seats, he got flattened like a pancake under Uncle Stinky.
"Fun game," he sarcastically commented as his beak stuck out from under Stinky's seat.
"Look, look!" Winnie, Hamton's mom exclaimed, "Here comes some more!"
And they were bouncing again, and Plucky was flattened again.
"There's a car, there's a car, there's a car, there's a, whoops, truck!" they all laughed and snorted.
Plucky looked to the 4th wall and stuck a forefinger to his head. "Shoot me."
"Great day in the morning!" Winnie announced, "look out!"
"Huh?" Plucky stood on his webbed toes to see what she was talking about, and he saw a blue mini-van careening across the lanes of traffic and heading right towards them. Plucky's eyes bugged out to twice his size, "HEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPP!"
There was a cartoon collision which resulted in a cloud of smoke and dust and stars and things flying everywhere, including people, one by one the Pig family rose to the top then fell through the cloud then dropped down again, Plucky was the last one up and promptly commented, "I miss school," before falling through the cloud and landing back in his seat.
It only took Plucky a second to realize there was no roof on the car now, for that matter, there wasn't any car, all that was left was the front and back seats, the four tires, the frame work, and the muffler. He saw Hamton's parents land on their feet in front of the remainder of the car, and in between those two points fell, landed and stacked on top of one another, a big beach ball, the canoe, the tent, the rest of the car, Hamton, the motorboat with Uncle Stinky in it, and a fishing pole holding up a picnic table and the bathtub.
"Hey, can we do that again?" an unfamiliar voice asked.
"Huh? What?" Plucky looked around, and looked up, and his whole face dropped, "YIPE!"
On top of the bathtub was the blue minivan, and its occupants sitting outside of it. Yakko Warner, Dot Warner, Wakko Warner, and Dr. Scratchansniff, who had landed in the bathtub and was currently getting an ice cold shower from it and yelling in a high pitched tone, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYIEEEEEEE!"
"What're you guys doing here?" Plucky asked as the Pig family worked at getting their car put back together and everything tied back on top in its place and subsequently removing Scratchy's car from the mix.
"We don't know," Yakko answered with a shrug of his shoulders and a shake of his head. "What're you doing here?"
"I'm on my way to Happy World Land!" he pointed a thumb at his chest.
"HAPPY WORLD LAND!?" the Warners chorused.
"Zere, dat should do it," Dr. Scratchansniff said as everything was put back into place.
He was suddenly bombarded by the three Warners standing on each other's shoulders as they leaned over him and proclaimed, "WE WANNA GO TO HAPPY WORLD LAND!"
"Eh? Vhat's dat?" he asked.
"WE WANNA GO TO HAPPY WORLD LAND!"
"Happy Vorld Land? But we can't go dere," the psychiatrist told them.
"WE WANNA GO TO HAPPY WORLD LAND!" they insisted.
"But I vas going to take you to the circus," Scratchy said.
"With clowns?" Wakko asked, and his whole body chattered and his knees knocked.
"Look, Scratchy," Yakko told him, "the only way this isn't going to end in a complete blood bath is..."
"WE WANNA GO TO HAPPY WORLD LAND!"
"Vell, vhen you put it dat way, sure, vhy not?" he asked, defeated.
"HURRAY!" the three Warners cheered.
"We'll just follow these guys," Wakko pointed to the Pig's car.
"I know just what to do about that," Yakko said, "Wakko, your gag bag."
"Coming right up."
He handed the brown paper bag to Yakko, who hunched over it and took out an assortment of props before finding the one he was looking for, a giant magnet, which he used to fuse the front of Scratchansniff's car to the back of the Pig's car.
"Well at least this'll give me something new to look at during the drive," Plucky dryly commented as he propped himself on his elbows and stared out the back window at the Warners making faces and bouncing around in the car.